Flight 11:8am-9am
8:13 a.m. September 11, 2001: Flight 11 Makes Its Last Communication with Air Traffic Control The last routine communication takes place between air traffic control and the pilots of Flight 11 at 8:13 and 29 seconds. Boston Center air traffic controller Pete Zalewski is handling the flight, and instructs it to turn 20 degrees to the right. Pilot John Ogonowski immediately acknowledges the instruction, but seconds later he fails to respond to a command to climb to 35,000 feet. Zalewski repeatedly tries to reach the pilot over the next ten minutes, even using the emergency frequency, but gets no response (see 8:14 a.m.-8:24 a.m. September 11, 2001). The 9/11 Commission concludes that Flight 11 is hijacked at 8:14, or shortly afterwards (see 8:14 a.m. September 11, 2001). YORK TIMES, 10/16/2001; MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 6/17/2004; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 4 (Between 8:13 a.m. and 8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Flight 11 Transponder Turned Off Shortly after air traffic controllers ask Flight 11 to climb to 35,000 feet, its transponder stops transmitting. Flight control manager Glenn Michael later says, “We considered it at that time to be a possible hijacking.” SCIENCE MONITOR, 9/13/2001; MSNBC, 9/15/2001; ASSOCIATED PRESS, 8/12/2002 Initial stories after 9/11 suggest the transponder is turned off around 8:13 a.m., but Pete Zalewski, the air traffic controller handling the flight, later says the transponder is turned off at 8:20 a.m. 9/11/2002 The 9/11 Commission places it at 8:21 a.m. COMMISSION, 6/17/2004 Colonel Robert Marr, head of NEADS, claims the transponder is turned off some time after 8:30 a.m. where the Flight 11 hijack was first detected a.m. NEWS, 9/11/2002 (8:13 a.m.-9:28 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Pilots of All Four Hijacked Planes Fail to Dial Standard Distress Code In the event of a hijacking, all airline pilots are trained to key an emergency four-digit code into their plane’s transponder. This would surreptitiously alert air traffic controllers, causing the letters “HJCK” to appear on their screens. 9/13/2001; NEWSDAY, 9/13/2001; NEWS (PORTUGAL), 8/3/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 7/24/2004, PP. 17-18 The action, which pilots should take the moment a hijack situation is known, only takes seconds to perform. SCIENCE MONITOR, 9/12/2001; CNN, 9/12/2001 Yet during the hijackings of flights 11, 175, 77, and 93, none of the pilots do this. 9/11/2001 (After 8:14 a.m.-8:38 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Flight 11 Pilot Repeatedly Pushes Talk Back Button At some unknown point after the hijacking begins, Flight 11’s talkback button is activated, which enables Boston flight controllers to hear what is being said in the cockpit. It is unclear whether John Ogonowski, the pilot, activates the talkback button, or whether a hijacker accidentally does so when he takes over the cockpit. A controller later says, “The button is being pushed intermittently most of the way to New York.” An article later notes that “his ability to do so also indicates that he is in the driver’s seat much of the way” to the WTC. Such transmissions continue until about 8:38 a.m. SCIENCE MONITOR, 9/13/2001; MSNBC, 9/15/2001 However, Ogonowski fails to punch a four-digit emergency code into the plane’s transponder, which pilots are taught to do the moment a hijack situation is known (see (8:13 a.m.-9:28 a.m.) September 11, 2001). SCIENCE MONITOR, 9/12/2001; CNN, 9/13/2001; BOSTON GLOBE, 11/23/2001 (8:15 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Flight Controllers Cannot Contact Flight 11 Two Boston flight controllers, Pete Zalewski and Lino Martins, discuss the fact that Flight 11 cannot be contacted. Zalewski says to Martins, “He won’t answer you. He’s nordo radio roger thanks.” 9/17/2001; NEW YORK TIMES, 10/16/2001; GUARDIAN, 10/17/2001; MSNBC, 9/11/2002 (8:16 a.m.-8:28 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Four Calls Made From Flight 11 by Unknown Individual, Possibly Flight Attendant Sara Low According to a computer presentation put forward as evidence in the 2006 trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, an unknown person—or persons—makes four calls from Flight 11. These are at 08:16:50, 08:20:11, 08:25:31, and 08:28:33. The calls do not appear to have gone through properly: they are each described as “On button pressed, no call made.” Though the trial exhibit identifies the caller(s) only as “Unknown Caller,” other evidence suggests that at least one of the calls is made by—or on behalf of—Sara Low, who is one of the plane’s flight attendants. Her father, Mike Low, later says he learned from FBI records that his daughter had given her childhood home phone number in Arkansas to another of the flight attendants, Amy Sweeney, for her to report the hijacking. Low speculates that the reason his daughter gave this particular number was that she had just moved home, and so, in the stress of the hijacking, her childhood phone number was the only one she could remember. The Moussaoui trial presentation lists Sweeney as making five calls from the plane. However, it says these are all to the American Airlines office at Boston’s Logan Airport. DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA, ALEXANDRIA DIVISION, 7/31/2006; NEW YORK TIMES, 9/4/2007 Sara Low lets Sweeney use her father’s calling card in order to make these five calls from an Airfone (see 8:22 a.m. September 11, 2001). YORK OBSERVER, 6/20/2004 8:20 a.m. September 11, 2001: American Airlines Dispatcher Learns of Problem With Flight 11 At the American Airlines operations center in Fort Worth, Texas, the flight dispatcher responsible for transatlantic flights receives a communication from an American Airlines flight traveling from Seattle to Boston, informing her that air traffic control has asked the aircraft to try and contact Flight 11. Under FAA rules, dispatchers licensed by the agency are responsible for following aircraft in flight. Once a plane is in the air, a dispatcher must monitor its progress, relay safety information to the captain, and handle any problems. American Airlines assigns a dispatcher to each of its flights. This is the first indication the dispatcher receives notice of any problem on Flight 11. MORNING NEWS, 6/13/2002; SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 6/14/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 8/26/2004, PP. 9 AND 86 However, Flight 11 is not a transatlantic flight, so why this particular dispatcher is notified is unclear. 8:20 a.m. September 11, 2001: Flight 11 IFF Signal Transmission Stops Flight 11 stops transmitting its IFF (identify friend or foe) beacon signal. 9/17/2001 (8:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Israeli Special-Ops Passenger Possibly Shot or Stabbed by Hijackers An FAA memo written on the evening of 9/11, and later leaked, will suggest that a man on Flight 11 is shot and killed by a gun before the plane crashes into the World Trade Center. The “Executive Summary,” based on information relayed by a flight attendant to the American Airlines Operation Center, states “that a passenger located in seat 10B [Satam Al Suqami] shot and killed a passenger in seat 9B [Daniel Lewin] at 9:20 a.m.” (Note that since Flight 11 crashes at 8:46, the time must be a typographical error, probably meaning 8:20). A report in Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz on September 17 will identify Lewin as a former member of the Israel Defense Force , Israel’s most successful Special Operations unit. PRESS INTERNATIONAL, 3/6/2002 Sayeret Matkal is a deep penetration unit that has been involved in assassinations, the theft of foreign signals intelligence materials, and the theft and destruction of foreign nuclear weaponry. YORKER, 10/29/2001 Lewin founded Akamai, a successful computer company, and his connections to Sayeret Matkal will remain hidden until the gun story becomes known. 9/15/2001 FAA and American Airline officials will later deny the gun story and suggest that Lewin is probably stabbed to death instead. POST, 3/2/2002; UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL, 3/6/2002 Officials assert that the leaked document was a “first draft,” and subsequently corrected, but decline to release the final draft, calling it “protected information.” However, an FAA official present when the memo is drafted will dispute the FAA’s claim, asserting that “the document was reviewed for accuracy by a number of people in the room, including myself and a couple of managers of the operations center.” 3/7/2002 This unnamed official is probably Bogdan Dzakovic, a leader of the FAA’s “red team” conducting covert security inspections. He will later tell the 9/11 Commission: (8:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Flight 11 Veers Off Course Flight 11 starts to veer dramatically off course. It now heads in a northwesterly direction toward Albany, New York. 9/11/2002 (8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Boston Controller Suspects Something Seriously Wrong with Flight 11, but NORAD Not Notified Boston flight controller Pete Zalewski, handling Flight 11, sees that the flight is off course and that the plane has turned off both transponder and radio. Zalewski later claims he turns to his supervisor and says, “Would you please come over here? I think something is seriously wrong with this plane. I don’t know what. It’s either mechanical, electrical, I think, but I’m not sure.” When asked if he suspected a hijacking at this point, he replies, “Absolutely not. No way.” According to the 9/11 Commission, “the supervisor instructed the controller Zalewski to follow standard operating procedures for handling a ‘no radio’ aircraft once the controller told the supervisor the transponder had been turned off.” Another flight controller, Tom Roberts, has another nearby American Airlines Flight try to contact Flight 11. There is still no response. The flight is now “drastically off course” but NORAD is still not notified. 9/11/2002; 9/11 COMMISSION, 6/17/2004 This response contradicts flight control manager Glenn Michael’s assertion that Flight 11 was considered a possible hijacking as soon as the transponder was discovered turned off. 8:30